Gardening 2021

Monday evening mooch around the garden, too hot to bother with doing much. Raised beds so scrappy - some squash plants that are too big, dribs and drabs of herbs, some slightly pointless fennel, pulled up the cavolo nero before it gets devoured by creatures. Dahlias starting to appear - one of those plants that I'd have thought too "blousy" a few years ago. Some of the nasturtiums have taken a hammering this year but still enough alive to bring me some joy. The cat mint is flowering - the cat doesn't normally give it chance. Bought a pack of marigolds but bored of them.

We recently did a bunch of work— ripped up a spurge that had been overwatered and killed by a friend (not talking to him right now), and I finally started trimming the lavender again. It's been coming up like gangbusters, can't understand how prolific it's gotten over just two years.

Our fig tree needs lots of tending so that it doesn't grow horizontally rather than vertically, but it's also just shooting up like crazy. And the wisteria had become unmanageable until my partner finally took to it with the shears— now it looks much better.

Hot peppers doing well, herbs doing well, much too much kale but okay, and so on.

Wondering if any ilxors have experience with growing bamboo, paricularly in the UK (or similar climate countries)?

A friend has started a business selling various products using bamboo, but currently has to source this from China. So we're going to experiment with growing our own Moso here in the uk. I've heard it can take months to germinate. any advice welcome.

Not grown it from seed but I have had to remove large clumps of the stuff from people's gardens as it can be pretty invasive. It has running rhizomes that have a pretty hard and sharp tip on them so think very carefully about where you'll be planting it. Would suggest surrounding the planting area with metal panels or similar sunk about ten inches into the soil, or if not, make sure it has wide strip of lawn all the way round it because mowing can keep if from spreading too far.

yeah for sure keep it ~truly~ contained at like supermax levels because that shit will spread everywhere otherwise

Thanks, yikes didn't realise they were that invasive. Seems we need to do a lot more research here.

afaik growing bamboo from seed is quite a specialised process. The seedlings will need to be kept in a greenhouse for a couple of years before planting out

You'd be much better off just buying some young potted plants. There are less invasive varieties out there but yeah, as noted above, tread carefully

I think she specifically requires Moso for the fabrics she uses. Her whole aim is producing ecologically beneficial products, but unfortunately it sounds like it would be better to just keep getting them from overseas.

Even if growing them were possible, and I'm sure it is with the effort she'd be more than willing to put in (her boyfriend is a park ranger and competent gardener too) there is still the process following that to extract/harvest whatever is needed for her materials. That is of course a different issue.

Do not— I repeat, DO NOT— grow bamboo. It is impossible to get rid of, spreads like crazy, and really shouldn't be grown outside of its native zones.

^^^yes to all this... otherwise i'd suggest investing in a very sturdy mattock, but even then it can be backbreaking work just to clear small patches of it once it's established!

have recently put a couple of feijoas in the ground which will hopefully fruit some day & propagated some gooseberries for later planting out.

bamboo is a good screening plant and very attractive - difficulty of removal less of a consideration if that's your use case. if you are going to grow running varieties, you need to make sure it's controlled properly (with a root barrier.) if you're going to grow clumping varieties, that's less of an issue. it can also be grown very successfully in containers.

Except from what I can tell from Ste's post, they're in the UK, where it isn't native, and root barriers are no guarantee against spread. "Use case" doesn't matter if one person's "use case" means allowing bamboo to take over their neighbors' gardens, too. Also, "use case" isn't a good way to think about gardening from an holistic, ecological perspective. Sorry!